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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22803952">Potential</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats'>strawberriesandtophats</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Found Family, Love, Other, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:41:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22803952</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“As much as I’d like to believe that a 12 on the scale exists, I think that it must be a truly extraordinary love and therefore as rare as those deep-water pearls in Earth legends,” Nureyev said.</p>
<p>“It’s got to exist, though,” Juno argued. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be on the scale.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>127</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Potential</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Peter Nureyev grinned at Juno, a sharp thing laced with danger. Not malice, or anger or fear.</p>
<p>It was the sort of expression that made you want to follow him anywhere, to give him anything he desired at the drop of a hat. Just for a few more minutes of charming conversation and laugher like clear bells in the air.</p>
<p>All in all, a good smile for a master thief.</p>
<p>And there was also the trace of amazement in his eyes, even if they were currently obscured by his stylish shades. As if he was snatching up everything he found interesting about their location and filing it away in some locked box in a vault, taking everything in and secreting it away in a place no one should be able to reach just in case that he’d never see anything like it again.</p>
<p>It was the same urge that caused him to act like a particularly flirty magpie, at all times, if left unchecked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It had been some time since they’d been on shore leave, so it was a kind of a relief to be able to walk around somewhere else than in the hallways and rooms of the <em>Carte Blanche</em>.</p>
<p>Juno watched as Nureyev floated around them, his heels clicking on the ground as Rita got herself a pile of snacks from a vendor and Vespa fiddled with the filter on her mask. Nureyev had spent most of his life making and then discarding identities, names and masks of all kinds in exchange for as much freedom as an individual could get in life.</p>
<p>And yet the man was not bouncing on them, leaving nothing but the scent of his cologne and some unwashed dishes in the sink behind.</p>
<p>Instead he’d latched himself onto Juno’s arm like they were in fact married. Perhaps he had enough excitement to keep him content by staying on the team, at least for now.</p>
<p>Juno could feel his coat pockets becoming heavier with stolen jewelry and make-up as they kept walking and Nureyev stole something from almost every single market stall. At one point he handed out still-warm pastries.</p>
<p>“Oooh,” Rita whispered loudly in Juno’s ear and stared at the two people that had almost ran over his toes on a broken hovercycle. “Those two people look just the like the couple on my new favorite show! What if they’re the actors and they fled the studio to run away together?”</p>
<p>“Perhaps they are dressing up as them as a display of their devotion to the show,” Jet said. “Or they simply have a very strange fashion sense.”</p>
<p>The couple proceeded to kiss passionately while accelerating, resulting in various people jumping out of the way and a great deal of shouting.</p>
<p>Buddy sighed in a way that was decidedly nostalgic.</p>
<p>Vespa looked suddenly very much alert.</p>
<p>“How much in love would you say that they were, darling?” Buddy wondered out loud in the direction of Vespa, glancing at a couple that had just zoomed past them. They were young, and loud and looked the sort that would rob a bank or two before the day was over. “Let’s say on the scale of -3 to 12.”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t aware that there was a scale,” Juno said, hearing the grumpiness in his own voice.</p>
<p>Nureyev hummed in consideration as they watched the couple disappear behind a corner.</p>
<p>Buddy gave them both a look that somehow tallied up every single time either of them had decided that pretending to be married was the way to go during a job.</p>
<p>“A 10, I’d say,” Nureyev said, adjusting his shades. “Not the kind of love that romantic shows are based on, but the sort that would elope at the drop of a hat. Any hat.”</p>
<p>“11,” Juno replied. “You’ve got to be ridiculously into someone to get on a broken hovercycle like that.”</p>
<p>“It’s not exactly the best ride in the galaxy, is it?” Nureyev said, winking at Juno shamelessly. “Nothing like the Ruby Seven.”</p>
<p>Jet opened his mouth, perhaps to say that he was not going to let their team thief anywhere near the Ruby Seven after he’d sat on top of the hood and was likely to spend his time doing inappropriate and potentially messy things with Juno if they’d get into the backseat. Then he closed it again, shaking his head as if he’d decided that it was better to stay quiet rather than to give anyone any ideas.</p>
<p>“An 8,” Jet said instead, tightening his grip on a car part that Juno had no name for. He hadn’t even haggled for it.</p>
<p>“A -2 at most,” Vespa said, a grim look on her face.</p>
<p> “A 12 because they’re both going to age like fine wine,” Rita insisted, finishing off her pastry.</p>
<p>Juno bit back a reply about all the surgeries people who had enough money had at their disposal, letting them hang onto their youth far longer than everyone else. But he saw the fragile flash of vulnerability and hope in Nureyev’s eyes before he put the shades back on.</p>
<p>“As much as I’d like to believe that a 12 on the scale exists, I think that it must be a truly extraordinary love and therefore as rare as those deep-water pearls in Earth legends,” Nureyev said.</p>
<p>“It’s got to exist, though,” Juno argued. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be on the scale.”</p>
<p>“Juno, Buddy just made up the scale a few seconds ago,” Nureyev reasoned.</p>
<p>“It’s not like anyone’d be at a 12 on the scale all the time,” Juno continued, ignoring him. “Maybe in the morning they are at a 9 and then maybe a 5 and a 12 at around midnight.”</p>
<p>“You’ve got to have one hell of a history if you’re ever going to get to a 12,” Vespa argued. “A night together isn’t going to cut it.”</p>
<p>“Depends on how good that night was,” Juno said, shrugging. “And everything that came after that, too.”</p>
<p>“A goal to aspire to, then?” Nureyev said, his grip on Juno’s arm tightening. His perfectly manicured nails glinted gold in the bright lights.</p>
<p>“At least something to believe in,” Buddy said, sweeping them all to the side so they’d get to the night market for groceries.</p>
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